About the SAP BI ODBO Connector

This document is called howto.html and is delivered in the resource adapter archive (RAR file) bi_sdk_odbo.rar. You may extract howto.html to a separate location for your reference before deploying the resource adapter archive. Refer to this document for properties configuration information.

This document contains the following information:


Overview

Microsoft's OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) is the established industry-standard OLAP API for the Windows platform. The BI ODBO Connector is based on ODBO, and allows you to connect applications built with the BI Java SDK to ODBO-compliant OLAP data sources such as Microsoft Analysis Services, SAS, Microsoft PivotTable Services, and SAP BI systems. This connector is fully compliant with the J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA).

You can also use the BI ODBO Connector to make these data sources available in SAP BI systems via UD Connect, or to create systems in the portal.

The BI ODBO Connector uses Microsoft's ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) and ADO MD (ActiveX Data Objects Multidimensional) to support connectivity to OLAP data sources. ADO provides access to the schema object; ADO MD adds easy access to multidimensional data by extending ADO with objects specific to multidimensional data, such as the cubes and cellsets. With ADO and ADO MD, you can browse multidimensional schema, query a cube, and retrieve the results, thus providing convenient access to OLAP data from languages such as Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C++, and Microsoft Visual J++. Like ADO, ADO MD uses an underlying OLE DB provider to gain access to data.

The BI ODBO Connector implements the BI Java SDK's IBIOlap interface.

 

System Requirements

Requirement Detail
Software prerequisites
  • Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.6 or greater
  • ODBO (OLE DB for OLAP) driver for your data source
Supported data sources Microsoft ODBO-compliant data sources
Supported systems Microsoft Windows 2000 / NT / XP or greater
Supported application server SAP NetWeaver

 

Connection Properties

Connection Constant Property Name Description Examples
OdboConnectionConstants.
USERNAME
UserName Data source username. (your username)
OdboConnectionConstants.
PASSWORD
Password Data source password. (your password)
OdboConnectionConstants.
LANGUAGE
Language Two-letter abbreviation of language. Sets the language for your data source (if supported), and also specifies the language of exceptions evoked on the BI Java SDK layer. Optional. Default is EN. EN = English
DE = German
OdboConnectionConstants.
CONNECTION_STRING
ConnString Connection string information such as provider name, file name, remote provider, remote server, and URL.

Note: For BW OLAP providers, to completely suppress the SAP Logon screen at runtime, be sure to also provide values for the UserName, Password, and Language properties, above. If you want to evoke the logon screen, you may specify the ConnString property only.
Local cube:
Provider=MSOLAP;
Location="c:\public\
SalesOverview.cub"


Microsoft Analysis Server:
Provider=MSOLAP;
data source=palbiteam


BW OLAP provider:
Data Source=BWP;
Provider=MDrmSAP;
SFC_CLIENT=010;
SFC_LANGUAGE=EN
OdboConnectionConstants.
LOGON_AS_USER_ID
(* see note below)
LogonAsUserID

Username of a given windows domain account.

Optional. Empty string means property not set.

(your username)
OdboConnectionConstants.
LOGON_AS_USER_PASSWORD
(* see note below)
LogonAsUser
Password

Password for a given windows domain account.

Optional. Empty string means property not set.

(your password)
OdboConnectionConstants.
LOGON_AS_USER_DOMAIN
(* see note below)
LogonAsUser
Domain

Windows domain account name.

Optional. Empty string means property not set.

(a Windows domain name)

* Note: Using a specific Windows domain account:

You may wish to set a specific Windows domain account in certain situations where the BI ODBO Connector needs to use security credentials different from the credentials used by J2EE server itself. Examples of this include when the OLE DB driver for Microsoft Analysis Server supports only Windows domain security and ignores credentials supplied in the connection string, if any, or with a connection to MS SQL Server where MS SQL Server is configured for Windows authentication only.

Configuring these properties will result in the BI ODBO Connector attempting to impersonate the specified Windows domain account when establishing a connection to the target system. The J2EE server will create a local COM component using the account information provided, and this component, in turn, will access the remote computer (such as that which hosts the database server). These properties are ignored if LogonAsUserID and/or LogonAsUserDomain contain an empty string or are absent.

 

JNDI Name

Refer to this connector in your application by its JNDI name: SDK_ODBO. For code samples, refer to the Connection Interfaces Javadocs package in the documentation set delivered with the BI Java SDK.

You may clone an existing connection using the Web Application Server's Visual Administrator. If you are using this connector with UD Connect, when entering the resource adapter name during the cloning process, you must prefix the JNDI name with "SDK_" and use only all capital letters in order for UD Connect to properly recognize the connector.

 

Additional Information

For more information about Sun's J2EE Connector Architecture, see:

For more information about the connection architecture in the BI Java SDK, refer to the following documentation in the SDK distribution package:

  • Connection Interfaces Javadocs package
  • Developer's Guide (PDF)

For more information about Microsoft's ADO, see: